These calm and cool surf-doomers and noise-making creatures are no reflection of their rowdy crowds. We caught up with the Brighton foursome that have been cooking up some deadly pits and got the all important answer to where has Digsaw and Crying Clown gone?
- All Your Happy Life has almost been out for a year now, did you achieve everything you wanted to with the album?
If we were honest probably not but it is hard to be completely happy with an album because there is always a budget and always a deadline (which is often decided by the budget!) So because of the tight budget we had to split the the recording into two different sessions in different studios which shifted things up quite a lot. However we are still really proud of what we achieved with it and it’s close to our hearts!
- It took a slightly different direction to the more experimental EP Home Recordings, was the EP a creative dump that went alongside the album or did the EP definitely come first?
The songs on the EP were completely separate from the album. Who Rides for example is as old as some of the songs on Annabel Dream Reader. We like to use the EPs between the albums to do more experimental creative stuff because, to go back to the first answer, there’s not usually a deadline and we can have more fun with it. Hence the soundscape stuff.
- 2016 was busy for you all with the release of an album AND the very extended EP, is there anything we should be looking out for in the latter half of this year?
Yes! Actually we are planning a small release but can’t say much more than that.
- DIY bands are on the rise again and your cassettes went down very well, can we expect more things of that nature?
Well we want to put out a CD only single release at some point so watch this space. Yeah we enjoyed doing the tapes for sure and we’ll definitely do more cassettes in the future. I think music fans still crave something physical.
- Your videos are all very Wytches-y and come across very well thought out, where do these ideas come from?
Most of them are done by Mark our fourth member. He’ll usually come up with a very loose concept and we’ll all just turn up and go from there. It’s all very off the cuff once the camera rolls.
- Do you think the visually creative side goes hand in hand with the music or do you feel quite separate to your cover art and videos?
We feel like we could never put out anything with art that didn’t reflect the music. It’s almost as important as the music itself, and we often have long talks about posters, record art and videos until we are all happy.
- As much as we love listening to you during our afternoon naps, you're definitely a band that needs to be appreciated live, how do you think your sound differs from the recordings to when you play live?
I feel it’s a lot more brutal live. There’s the adrenaline rush you feel from the crowd which wouldn't appear in the studio. I think that’s a very common thing though with any band.
- Is the dark and mysterious feeling we get just part of your stage presence or is it all a misunderstanding?
I guess it’s part of it all, we just get up and play. We don’t really do the whole audience participation stuff like a lot of bands do. Some people might see that as a negative thing but we’ve always felt that a Wytches show is better when we are just playing the songs.
- And finally, a request from our readers, why don't you play Crying Clown or Digsaw live anymore?
We still play Crying Clown a lot more than people think. Just not all the time. Digsaw was our first proper release so if I’m honest we got quite sick of it. But like most of the songs I’m sure it’ll make its way back into the setlist in time. We’ve started playing Burn out the bruise again now too. That disappeared for a long time.
Keep your eyes on thewytches.com and their Facebook Page to be first to hear about that little release that's on it's way.
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